"I'll see you for coffee at 3 in Timmie's!" Now, Canada sports among its coffee house chains "Tim Horton's" and "Timothy's World Coffee" ... so you already guessed I waited in the one, she in the other. We could afford to laugh about how easily small ambiguities lead to tangible consequences (for librarians, no less!).
In corporate settings, this very phenomenon of "assumed information" is no cause for laughter. It presents considerable risk and waste of time:
- Filings after February last year were coded in a different way so we split the database rather than recode ... everybody knows. Except the latest-to-arrive team member who for a time could assume there isn't anything before March last year!
- Everyone knows "the way we distinguish between emails and memos" because of the records management system implications. Ah, no, the summer intern can't - if there is not an easily found, clearly defined document setting out the criteria and the treatment rules.
- Two departments have historically had different vocabularies for some similar activities they track. Over time, staff compensate for such differences by memory ... but as time goes on, it becomes clear we miss relevant documents in each department because of the differences in terminology.
You could add your own myriad examples how "assumed knowledge" is not "universal knowledge" - and how as a consequence investigation is needed and time gets wasted tracking down "why the items from the subcommittee were not included in the list" [because A thought B knew to retrieve them from C database as they were not included in D database owing to the current IT activities].
It is an information professional's contribution to any organization that he or she discovers, and remedies, such "assumed knowledge" risks. Signage, links, lists, intranet design, database structures, taxonomies, and other coding schemes ... whatever it takes, we information professionals are ready to protect against the corporate cost of "oh, you didn't know ..." ?
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